If it’s all about making new cars more fuel efficient, how come they aren’t?
Since the mid-1970s, the federal government (to be precise, the regulatory bureaucracy of the federal government) has been using “fuel efficiency” as the excuse to make cars smaller (and smaller-engined) as well as more and more expensive.This in order to make them less and appealing, in order – end-game – to turn cars into things fewer and fewer want.
And most can no longer afford.
It is also why “gas mileage” is, on average, no better today than it was 40 years ago. But engines have gotten much smaller. Soon, there will be no engines at all. That has been the end game, from the beginning. This “fuel efficiency” thing is merely a means toward that end, very much as “masks” were a means toward another end.
If you need some specific examples to prove the point, here’s one. The latest, in fact.
Genesis – which is Hyundai’s luxury car division – has just announced that its top-of-the-line luxury car, the G90, will no longer offer a V8 engine after the end of this model year – joining the ranks of Lexus and Audi, which have already done the same. 
But why would these brands – which sell six figure cars to people who can afford to spend money on gas – diminish the prestige of their brands by ceasing to offer what was as recently as three or four years ago expected in a six figure car?
It has nothing to do with “fuel efficiency.” All you have to do is glance at the stats.
The 2022 Genesis G90, equipped with a 5.0 liter V8 engine (420 horsepower) advertises 16 miles-per-gallon in “city” driving and 24 miles-per-gallon on the “highway.” The 2023 G90 – which will no longer offer the 5.0 V8 engine – offers instead a 3.5 liter V6 (supercharged, to make up for the lost displacement) that makes 409 horsepower and carries an EPA rating of . . . 17 miles-per-gallon in “city” driving and 24 miles-per-gallon on the “highway.”
It is the difference between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. That is to say, no difference – at least insofar as “fuel efficiency.”
So, why would Genesis drop the 5.0 V8, which endowed the G90 with a gravitas that is lacking in cars that do not offer V8s – if there is no difference to speak of in terms of “fuel efficiency” and a decline in power output, which further erodes the prestige of a car such as the G90 and thereby the reason for buying a car such as the G90?
Why did Lexus – which used to include a powerful V8 as standard equipment in its top-of-the-line luxury sedan, the LS, replace that engine with a V6 that is only slightly more “fuel efficient” but far less prestigious?
Why did Audi do the same?
Why does GM put a four cylinder engine in its half-ton truck, the Silverado? Why are full-size SUVs (a type of vehicle that, in former times, always came standard with a big V8) such as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sold with nothing larger than a 3.5 liter V6?
There is only one reason – and it isn’t because these under-sized and over-taxed engines are more “fuel efficient.”
It is – fundamentally – the same reason people were pressured to wear “masks,” which never had anything to do with curtailing the propagation of sickness. The car companies are being pressured to get rid of engines, not because they aren’t “fuel efficient” – but because they are engines.
Because engines are the thing that makes people desire cars. Gives a particular car a specific personality and thus a reason for preferring this one over that one.
Without an engine, a car is an appliance. A kind of mobile dish-washer that is bought out of necessity rather than passion. A thing most people aren’t emotionally interested in. Which makes them an easy thing to give up.
And that is the reason for this decades-long gradual ratcheting upward of what has been marketed as “fuel efficiency” requirements – which have resulted in so such thing.
It seems incredible. Unbelievable, even. But then, consider how incredible – how unbelievable – the events of the past almost-three-years have been. We all know now that “masking” served a far different purpose than advertised. That the “pandemic” was never about the “virus,” except incidentally.
Just so, this business about “fuel efficiency.”
If that really mattered – to the people who run the apparat – the apparat would have encouraged the car companies to build more “fuel efficient” vehicles, as for example VW’s line of extremely fuel-efficient diesel-powered vehicles. These surpassed the fuel efficiency of every other vehicle on the road, excepting the handful of small hybrids on the road. And – mark this – the hybrids are now in the crosshairs, too.
It isn’t because they aren’t “fuel efficient,” either. It is because they still have engines – however small and no matter how efficient they are. VW had been working on a diesel-powered hybrid that was expected to average at least 80 miles-per-gallon.
Fuel efficiency isn’t the goal. Engines are the target. And that’s not quite accurate.
It is cars that are in the crosshairs. Including – don’t be deceived – EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeees.
They will be targeted, in their turn, once the alternatives to them have been gotten rid of. This will take less effort, too, as most people will be as interested in buying an EeeeeeeeeVeeeee as they are interested in buying washing machines.
With the difference being that few people will be able to afford these washing machines – even if they did want them.
. . .
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How to Think About Climate Change…. William Happer….your chance to hear a real scientist
The global warming green agenda pushed by ecofascists is based is purely political and religious, based on fake science, like the Climate change false narrative, the new GAIA cult religion, a big favorite of the communist, reset, one world government, satanic cult freaks,
CO2 bs = insanity. another nutcase theory for low iq leftist morons
Climate change just like bat germ bs is purely political and religious, based on fake science. Climate change, the new GAIA cult religion, like it’s brother bat germ hoax, a big favorite of the communist, reset, one world government, satanic cult freaks,
People in the environmental movement are now just political activists, social activists, entrepenuers trying to make money, just a way to get a huge amount of cash, they have no formal science education, they just use fake science, their beliefs, so it is just a religion.
They take more and more extreme positions to keep the good guy bad guy narrative going, like banning all hydrocarbons, which is impossible and insane.
They hire the best PR firms to push their bs narrative and their main focus becomes just fund raising, just a racket.
They lie and use photo shop to back up their lies, like the island of floating plastic in the ocean twice the size of Texas, ……it doesn’t exist it is another lie…….it is remote so it is hard to fact check
They pick something that is invisible or remote or both, like CO2 so it is harder to fact check. Big pharma did this with the bat germ narrative (bat germs are invisible) they just used a cgi image…lol.
All the environmental problems they talk about are all lies, it is all fraud. Some of them are being charged with fraud now.
These green morons have zero science to back up their propaganda, (they quote crooked scientists not real science), all the claims they make are from corrupt, bought/rented loser low grade scientists who use fraudulent data and fake science to make these claims, they are intellectualy and scientifically bankrupt.
All the very best top level Phd scientists say they are wrong….lol
Watch one of the few un-silenced actual top level scientists in the world in this video…..
This is a very simplified version of the 38-page technical paper written with Professor Wijngaarden which explains in detailed mathematics and molecular thermodynamics why we are not in trouble with carbon-dioxide. For those who disagree with Happer, let us see your detailed mathematical / scientific rebuttal. Remember that an attack ad-Hominem concedes that you have no logical rebuttal for the argument presented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA1zUW4uOSw
Cars are bloated bathtubs to pilot around now. SAD! I remember my dad’s Lexus V8 in the 80s. Silky power. Just a totally premium experience.
OT – Eric you should consider twitter. I thought it was useless crap for so long but it’s pretty engaging. You’d probably love it. Follow Ann Lesby,
Hi Mark,
Yup. The bloat is obscene. A friend’s mom has a Fiat 500 – which is a cute little car. It weighs around 2,600 pounds. It ought to weigh around 1,600 pounds… or even less.
If gas mileage was the goal, they wouldn’t force new cars to be about 500 pounds overweight.
Owning/driving an EV already costs a lot more then driving an ice car, it is going to get a lot worse…lol
People bought EV’s and thought they could drive almost for free, they wouldn’t have to buy gas anymore, they would save a lot of money.
The reality is a lot different….
Comparing cost per mile, 10 years, 100,000 miles:
Tesla EV and VW diesel
I saw rates somewhere at $0.14 per kwh at home, that is due to probably triple very soon.
in Europe it costs $0.72 per kwh, coming here soon.
I saw rates nation wide at fast chargers outside home at $0.40 per kwh
What test drivers are actually getting driving in the real world driving EV’s is they are getting 2.4 miles of range for every kwh
An EV just sitting loses:
tesla says a daily 3%-5% stationary range consumption.” (just parked) leakage, batteries leak power, ice cars don’t
90 kwh x .05 = 4.5 kwh lost per day leakage x $0.14 = $0.63 per day just parked = $0.02 per mile
Ice diesel:
The 2014 Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion diesel, capable of 73.5 mpg U.S. it has a 971 mile range, the perfect car.
VW diesel 100 mile fuel consumption = 1.36 gallons @ $4.00 gallon = $5.44 = $0.0544 per
mile
Tesla EV @ home 100 mile fuel consumption = 41.66 kwh @ $0.14 kwh = $5.83 = $0.0583 per mile
Tesla EV @ fast charger 100 mile fuel consumption = 41.66 kwh @ $0.40 kwh = $16.64 = $0.16 per mile
the tesla $22,000 battery is used up, worn out in 100,000 miles. = $0.22 per mile for the battery use,
the battery use cost is higher then the electricity used. A hidden cost, nobody told you about. maybe a lawsuit?
Tire costs
The tires on EVs tend to wear out faster due to the additional weight and extra torque that hits the road. Plus, EV tires typically have less tread to improve range and decrease noise, they need special more expensive HL rated tires.
Tesla tire size 235 35 20 $391.00
VW Golf tire size 225 45 R17 $119.00
In 100,000 miles if the tesla needs 4 replacement sets = $391.00 x 16 tires = $6256.00 = $0.06 per mile
In 100,000 miles if the VW Golf needs 2 replacement sets = $119.00 x 8 tires = $952.00 = $0.01 per mile
Tesla EV costs $50,000 depreciation over 10 years is $39,500 = $0.39 per mile
the VW diesel costs $24,355 depreciation over 10 years is $19,240 = $0.19 per mile
Tesla EV costs for maintenance and repair: $1000.00 per year = $0.10 per mile
VW diesel costs for maintenance and repair: : $1000.00 per year = $0.10 per mile
Tesla EV using a home charger total cost per mile = $0.84
Tesla EV using a fast charger total cost per mile = $0.94
VW diesel total cost per mile = $0.35
The VW diesel cost per mile includes the gas road tax, the Tesla EV doesn’t include that, but it will pretty soon….watch…
This doesn’t include insurance costs, if insurance costs $3.00 per day = $0.11 per mile
2014 Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion for sale… $6403.00….buy one…
https://www.motors.co.uk/volkswagen/golf/trim/bluemotion/year/2014/used-cars/
ESG
KEEP IT. And stock up on parts like oil filters, air filters, and spark plugs and OIL. You don’t want that ’14 Transit idled due to lack of appropriate consumable parts.
I assume you’re replying to my post. Yeah, I’m keeping it. Running just fine. Just spent nearly a grand today on regular maintenance items, including 4 new tires that were 33% more expensive than the same ones back in Jan ‘19. Better 1 grand than 31!
The big and unfunny joke is that climate change is a scam. First of all the climate is always changing, by natural causes, thus labeling climate change a perjorative means absolutely nothing. And then you would have to prove the human caused part which is impossible. That means the term climate change means nothing, it is just a media pushed psyop.
Climate change really means global warming by humans because of increased CO2 emissions. (Look it up if you don’t believe me)
Climate change was pasted over global warming because global warming was not happening, so the elite scum did not admit they were wrong, they doubled down and changed the meme, to a completely meaningless one, and then started pumping the airwaves with it over and over until the average dope thinks climate change is some sort of real thing. In fact the average person has no idea what “climate change” means.
Jay Leno’s Science quiz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmI6YpGew1w
UNREAL: Do Young Americans Know ANYTHING?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TZW6lVLYP0
Then to sell their agenda, which was based on utter bullshit, they brought in personalities like Greta Thunberg, who had not yet finished high school and had no collegiate training in science and was not a climatologists. She was some emotional kid damning us for a non-existent problem that society had convinced her of. Of course you will never hear from a real climatologist because they would shred the narrative with facts.
The also used Al Gore, the spoiled senators son from Tennessee, born with the proverbial silver spoon up his nose. Al Gore flunked Chemistry in high school, and never took even one collegiate level science course, yet this scientifically illiterate dufus tells us the facts about how CO2 going up will cause warming.
Just one problem, Al Gore got is wrong, he actually made a huge mistake, CO2 always follows temperatures, it never forces temp. This is hard core data from ice core records. CO2 has always followed temperature up and down in all of earth’s 4.6 billion year history.
So the bottom line in all of this is very simple, CO2 does not cause warming, never has in the past and is not now. That is why predictions of all the ice melting fail. That is also why as CO2 goes up temperatures go sideways, because their is no forcing between atmospheric CO2 and temperature. Thus the entire premise of human caused warming is false.
Now with all that said, a whole lot of scientists know this, but you will never hear from them, you will only hear the propaganda from the bought and paid for shills. So as they take our gasoline engines away the vast majority of people will have no idea why or how they did it.
BTW, Greta’s mom told the world her daughter could see CO2 going out the chimney, and no one in the media challenged that.
The one chart that destroys the climate change narrative:
https://i.imgur.com/GGvxlMV.png
CO2 follows, it does not lead – and Al Gore (dufus extraordinaire) got the causality backwards.
Now if you are branded by the media, such a claim (and chart) will only make you numb, because you simply can’t believe that they lied to you on that scale. But they did. They said man made CO2 causes runaway warming. It does not, and can not, CO2 is a trace gas, and a slight increase in a trace gas, measured in parts per million, is not going to fry us off the planet, that is ludicrous on the face of it.
What controls the thermodynamics of earth is the sun and orbital cycles which change the earth’s distance from the sun, not a trace gas. What matters is how much sun the planet gets. That should be obvious. At night all the gain is radiated to space, and what slows that down is water vapor, not CO2.
But the politicians are changing our society in a big way, using false narratives. For instance, they used the 911 false flag to go to war and spend trillions. They have the power to do so because they control the narrative with the electronic boob tube. So there is no reason to think they will not be successful unless their is a huge collapse and we string them up, which of course, is highly unlikely.
And no matter how bad it gets, they will still get the votes or steal the votes. NO MATTER HOW BAD IT GETS, IF THE GOVERNMENT ROBS PETER TO PAY PAUL, THEN THEY CAN COUNT ON PAUL’S VOTE.
The climate change emergency…lol
Banning all ice cars, shutting down power plants based on a huge lie. Just a huge money grab by climate cultists….
“Nothing To Do With Man” – Astrophysicist Says Climate-Cultists “Are On A Gravy Train” To Make Money
Piers Corbyn – physicist, meteorologist, and elder brother of former UK Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – explained to the shocked RT anchor that the climate “has always been changing, but this has nothing to do with man”
The astrophysicist instead believes that changes in the Earth’s climate and its weather are dictated primarily by cyclical activity on the surface of the sun (and not, pointedly, by the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere).
“For one thing science doesn’t do settled opinions,” Corbyn says.
“And for another they are all wrong.”
“Surely man has something to with this,” exclaims the struggling new anchor, to which Corbyn responds:
“No, the only connection is that man is here at the same time as the sun and the moon are doing things.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/nothing-do-man-astrophysicist-says-climate-cultists-are-gravy-train-make-money
Hi YJ
Your chance to hear a real scientist……..Dr. Patrick Moore….. a top level scientist, talking about the global warming lie.
These green morons have zero science to back up their propaganda, all the claims they make are from corrupt, bought/rented loser low grade scientists who use fraudulent data and fake science to make these claims, they are intellectualy and scientifically bankrupt.
All the very best top level Phd scientists say they are wrong….lol
People in the environmental movement are now just political activists, social activists, entrepenuers trying to make money, just a way to get a huge amount of cash, they have no formal science education, they just use fake science, their beliefs, so it is just a religion.
They take more and more extreme positions to keep the good guy bad guy narrative going, like banning all hydrocarbons, which is impossible and insane.
They hire the best PR firms to push their bs narrative and their main focus becomes just fund raising, just a racket.
They lie and use photo shop to back up their lies, like the island of floating plastic in the ocean twice the size of Texas, ……it doesn’t exist it is another lie…….it is remote so it is hard to fact check
They pick something that is invisible or remote or both, like CO2 so it is harder to fact check. Big pharma did this with the bat germ narrative (bat germs are invisible) they just used a cgi image…lol.
All the environmental problems they talk about are all lies, it is all fraud. Some of them are being charged with fraud now.
CO2…plants are actually starving for CO2 today, it is too low.
Under obama the EPA said CO2 is a pollutant…but is the most important food for life on the planet.
Because the EPA said CO2 is a pollutant, which is a lie, all ice cars are being banned….
CO2 went from 2500 ppm a long time ago, when there was huge forests everywhere down to 180 ppm in the ice age (150 is when all plants die) back to 400 ppm today….plants are actually starving for CO2 today, it is too low.
These liars are banning all ice cars because of CO2, they are insane…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=w5nEboAQNcQ
New York Bans the Sale of Gas Engine Cars, Trucks, and Off-road Vehicles in 2035
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/09/new-york-law-phases-out-most-gas-powered-vehicles-by-2035.html
Amtrak couldn’t survive without the taxpayer, yet it still persists with little to no opposition. When you own nothing, you will be expected to be happy while anxiously waiting to see if the Amtrak schlubs go on strike.
Amtrak is one of those “Washington Monument” things governments do. When the railroads go on strike, expect to see human interest stories about stranded passengers waiting at the train station to go home for Thanksgiving or whatever. Never mind that they could be flying for a third of the cost, or taking the Greyhound for a tenth.
Did Amtrak once. Never again. The only thing it has going for it, is the scenery going by and some nice fellow travelers to chat with. The train itself was running late, old, dirty, the armrest compartment was full of garbage, though the seat itself was big and pretty comfy (better than an aircraft seat, but that isn’t hard to beat). The food wasn’t great and was expensive. Took about a third longer than driving the same distant. Most of the passengers, no surprise, retired people in no hurry.
A VERY interesting note. Italy, late to the game of being amassed from its various duchies and other Medieval fiefdoms, depended on the state-run railway for transportation, as FIAT, or “Fix-It-Again, Tony”, hadn’t quite put a “Cinque-Cento” (500) in every Dago’s carport yet. Italian leftist labor factions, especially the Communists, would conduct arbitrary strikes, what they term “Il Sciopero”, to harass their opponents or simply make a point. When Benito Mussolini came to power, he put an end to that shit in a simple manner…by stationing soldiers on the train, with orders to SHOOT the engineers and the rest of the train’s crew if they were late. That was how “Il Duce” made the trains run on time!
Mentioning trains running on time. This Friday will be very interesting (not in a good way) if the railroads strike. The USSA moves $2 billion daily through the railway system. It would take an extra 467,000 semis to move what the RR does. We have shut down the pipelines, now we are shutting down the rail cars. Theis only leaves trucks to make their way across this country with the materials and supplies our nation needs.
There simply couldn’t be that many semis produced and/or rebuilt in three or four years. Let alone TRAIN enough drivers to operate them.
Ask yourself this: why is it that in most military operations, they fail due to LOGISTICS? There’s a saying in the war-gaming community: Amateurs discuss strategy and/or tactics, the PROS discuss logistics. If the military has problems keeping its fighting forces supplied with what they need, to do what they do best (kill people and break things), then why, pray tell, would we want ANY “Gubmint” bureaucrat to run our railroads, petroleum product(s) pipelines, power distribution grid, or trucking fleets? Let alone dictate to we “peons” what rides, if any, we’re “allowed” to own and drive?
Since when is it the government’s business to dictate what cars will have and be?
That’s right, you will have nothing and be happy. All your stuff to us belong.
You’ve been bit and bridled, you’re a beast of burden. You’ll be reined in and trained to be a good slave. Shake those chains.
The lunatics are in charge, the asylum is filled to the brim with them. The real nutjobs can go at it night and day.
Another war front today, gotta have one of those. The stock market is struggling, getting punched in the snoot.
It is still your fault.
Stop fueling tanks and war machines, there will be more gas and diesel for doing the real work in this world.
So many things the Federal Government is involved with I don’t see it being authorized to do in the US Constitution. As whom Eric calls “The Chimp” put it, that document is effectively a scrap of paper.
Maybe the DOT can do us a favor and finally declare “war” on V8 engines, instead of hiding in the shadow of the CARB. After all, the war on drugs led to most of us being more aware of street drugs then any suburban teenagers should have, and after 50 years of battle they’re firmly inbedded in US culture and media. The war on terror led to more and widespread terrorism, at least overseas. The war on poverty froze US poverty percentage at the rate it was at the start of the great society legislation and it hasn’t moved significantly up or down since.
While we’re at it, why not get the department of education fighting a war on critical thought and vocational training? The EPA could fight a war on trees.
This might be a great country again if we let these agencies do what they do best! 😀
Or as Harry Browne used to say, “If we start a war on abortion like the war on drugs and war on poverty, within 5 years men would be having abortions.”
The Wokesters already claim they CAN get pregnant, so why shouldn’t they have their abortions?
The writers for the Simpsons SOLVED that controversy back in ’96. Why can’t DC do things so simply?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIgSTjzrmRg
Hence why the next project is to procure something like a 1973 Chrysler Newport with a nice, thirsty 400 cube “B” block. I’ll even take the one with the “wheezy” Carter BBD two-barrel carb. Fuck those anal-retentive twits, I’m gonna drive my COUCH on the highway!
We live in a world of lies and deceit!
I’m wondering what will be the final straw that breaks the camel’s back in the PTB effort to push us back into medieval serfs. I sincerely hope that there’s enough of us out there that aren’t completely pussified and will finally say “enough!” We should remind Klaus “you’ll own nothing….” Schwab that if got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s beyond time to storm Davos with the proverbial torches and pitchforks and put those s.o.b.’s on a desert island somewhere where they can eat bugs and each other.
Mike – heard somewhere (think it was Schiff) that a serf had to pay 25% of his income to the lord of the land – thats what made him a serf. Given I’m sure we all pay more than 25% of our incomes to our overlords – I think being a serf would be a promotion….
‘The car companies are being pressured to get rid of engines’ — eric
Fourteen years after Tesla’s first roadster went on sale, Experian finds that 0.63% of America’s 284 million vehicle fleet consists of EeeVees.
What is wrong with this picture?
When a technologically superior product hits the market, no one has to be arm-twisted to buy it. Fifteen years after flat display screens and TeeVees became commercially available, they displaced bulky CRTs (Cathode Ray Tubes) because they were cheaper, lighter and better — producing the familiar s-curve of new tech adoption in a couple of decades.
But with EeeVees, the adoption s-curve just isn’t getting off the ground. EeeVees are costlier, heavier, and less convenient than the ICE vehicles they aim to replace. Even with Big Gov offering to build out the dauntingly expensive public charging infrastructure for free, enthusiasm for EeeVees among the public is limited.
For most, EeeVees are an overpriced, unnecessary, and unattainable luxury — assuming they even wanted a roadworthy Dyson vacuum cleaner with leather seats. Induction motor go whoosh, yowza!
But the US fedgov has got the bit between its teeth in an anti-carbon crusade that eventually will merit its own chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Like a cross between the Vietnamese and Afghan bungles, EeeVees are a multi-trillion government ‘investment’ that will yield only negative returns.
This is how empires die, with feckless, boodling poltroons in their rubber-stamp parliaments, under senile, bribe-taking figurehead rulers.
Hi Jim,
You raise an excellent point. How long did it take the Model T to become the car for millions of Americans? Answer: I wasn’t 14 years….
Thanks, Eric. Your example of the Model T is even better. Introduced in 1908 (one hundred years before the first Tesla), by 1922 it sold 1.3 million units, rising to 2.0 million in 1923. Meanwhile, its 1908 intro price of $850 got chopped to $319 by 1922.
Compared to the 1908 alternative of animal transport (horse and buggy), the Model T simply blew it away in convenience, range and capability. By 1925, my grandparents were able to drive 1,000 miles from Texas to Colorado in a Model T for a summer vacation — inconceivable just a generation earlier, when they were kids on the farm.
EeeVees offer no such game-changing leap. Indeed, they are objectively inferior to ICE vehicles in several respects, starting with range and long-distance convenience. In fact, the anti-carbon, ‘climate change’ agenda is the real reason for the EeeVee push. We’re supposed to just suck it up, pay the price, and take the hit … on behalf of ‘climate justice,’ whatever that is.
Remember Dean Kamen’s slow-reveal hype campaign for the Segway scooter? Even Steve Jobs thought it would be “as significant as the personal computer.” But both were wrong. There is no mass market for the Segway.
Likewise, I claim that EeeVees lack a natural mass market, despite being the best choice for certain niche applications. Big Gov trying to replace ICE transport with EeeVees will prove to be an EPIC debacle, with losses running into the trillions.
But Big Gov feels no pain, even as America’s living standards gurgle down the drain.
Jim,
“Big Gov feels no pain” is the primary ingredient of all the tyranny going on in the world. From EU ministers keeping their homes and offices toasty warm this winter, to FedGov “officials” continuing to ride in V8 vehicles, driven by chauffeurs.
Those that inflict pain do not suffer it.
You can’t get me to shut up re: Ford’s Model T and how it revolutionized the auto industry itself.
This car was the first widely-produced vehicle with “Design for Manufacture” in mind. Not simply the standardization of components, or even the “whatever color, as long as it’s black” thing, the Model T was designed to be put together on an assembly line, requiring “craftsmanship” and skilled labor only where absolutely necessary. Even boxes that parts were shipped in became parts of the wooden components of the vehicle’s body, like the floor boards. Ford’s boast was that raw materials arrived at the rail head or docks of the River Rouge plant, i.e., coal, iron ore, copper ores, rubber, and so on, and went out as a finished Model T in only 53 hours.
Even the four-banger engine was a model of simplicity and reliability…since it had only a 4:1 compression ratio, which was horribly under-powered (only 21 bhp by 1925) by modern standards, this plant could tolerate fuels of dubious quality, or even run if gasoline was “cut” with kerosene, which many unscrupulous filling stations did, or even run on ethanol, which again, was common in rural areas used to making their own “cawn likker”. It didn’t even have a water pump, as the natural thermosiphoning sufficed to cool the engine. No fuel pump, either, as the fuel tank was in front of the cab, which fed the engine by gravity. Since the engine was decidedly a low-compression plant, and it rarely turned high rpms, it was hard to wear them out! And if it did need a “ring job”, it could be done in the course of an afternoon. It was said that a Model T could be maintained with a common screwdriver, a pair of slip-joint pliers, and some baling wire!
Interestingly enough, as Ford wasn’t interesting in offering different models of the same car, figuring that it took away from keeping the vehicle as low-cost and reliable as possible (i.e., no “badge-engineering”), it gave rise to an extensive aftermarket, as many “T” owners customized their “Flivvers”. This is where some outfits like JC Whitney and Honest Charley got their start. It also gave rise to a well-known auto parts/service chain, as three Jewish young men from Philly, starting their auto parts store, got the exclusive rights to a desired valve-grinding compound called “Pep”, which was used to “lap” the valve seats when doing an overhaul on one’s Model T engine. The word got out to see “Manny, Moe, and Jack” to get Pep valve grinding compound, so they were nick-named the “Pep” boys, which they took on as a trademark, and the rest is history.
>anti-carbon crusade that eventually will merit its own chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Right next to the chapter about the religious cult known as “Branch Covidians,” with their weird “masking” ritual.
Who exactly put the “stupid” in the drinking water?
Purity Of Essence, folks.
‘>anti-carbon crusade that eventually will merit its own chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.’ — Adi Heidler
If Germany’s self-imposed economic suicide comes to pass this winter, the book’s next edition may be titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Krauts in their memory.
Re Germany – shutting down industrial plants then trying to restart, good luck!
Hopefully they get a clue before the nat gas disappears, I was installing crane equipment in a new aluminum casting plant many decades ago. They told me if the gas supply fails they have little time to empty the melt pots. If the big pots go cold it’s a grim/expensive process to torch out the aluminum and get started again. I think they payed extra for uninterruptible gas supply.
Related, some pundit on the radio talked about industrial plant restarts, for some won’t make economic sense to do it.
Caligula appointing his horse to the Roman Senate doesn’t look so idiotic, does it?
I am curious to see how they get the existing cars off the road without crashing the economy or creating a civil disturbance of some kind. Obviously they can manipulate gas prices and come up with other ways to make owning a ICE vehicle more and more inconvenient.
There are few things that bring people together more than good food and nice cars. Black and white, poor and rich, even some hard line liberals can appreciate a nice ride. Optimistically I think “eating the bugs” and “taking the cars” both go too far in eroding the cultural institutions that support this country and will result in unrest.
Of course they will attempt to do so gradually so we don’t notice. As much.
Here’s a crazy scenario I just experienced. I bought a ‘14 Ford TransitConnect w/ 65k miles in ‘18 from a dealer for $13k. I thought I got jerked but they warrantied it for three years and I broke even on that. I like it a lot and have put about 50k miles on it. I just checked into maybe trading it for a new one. They sticker in the low 30s but there are none available within 500 miles. Since I was only really looking at new, I didn’t do too much digging at used car lots but what struck me was that the only used TC available in that radius at a dealer was a ‘19 with 89k miles for… $31k! Same $ as new!